Everything you need to know about BBC’s The Jetty

Header Image Credit: Firebird Pictures, Ben Blackall.

The Jetty is the newest BBC crime thriller to make waves. It stars Jenna Coleman as a recently widowed detective assigned to look into a possible arson attack. Investigating the case reveals connections to a missing person’s cold case and a local sexual offender, while also causing the detective to doubt her own past and memories.

Here’s everything you need to know about The Jetty…

The cast

In terms of UK television drama, stars don’t come much bigger or brighter than the actress heading up the cast. Jenna Coleman was quite literally British TV royalty between 2016 and 2019 when she starred in ITV’s Victoria. Roles in dramas such as The Serpent and The Sandman have only cemented her position since then. Coleman plays Detective Ember Manning.

The Jetty’s supporting cast is more than capable, although there are very few, if any, household names on the call sheet. Perhaps the most recognisable is Ralph Ineson (The Office, The Witch) who plays Ember’s boss, Detective Inspector Morgan.

Ruby Stokes (Bridgerton) appears as Ember’s daughter Hannah. Archie Renaux (who has a leading role in the upcoming Alien: Romulus) plays Ember’s colleague Hitch. House of the Dragon‘s Tom Glynn-Carney is Ember’s ex-husband Malachy, while Matthew McNulty (Deadwater Fell) plays Arj. Laura Marcus (Bad Education) plays Caitlin, Amelia Bullmore (Happy Valley) plays Ember’s mum Sylvia, and podcaster Riz is played by I May Destroy You’s Weruche Opia.

Filming locations

You’d hope that a drama that’s very clearly set in a specific place would largely be shot there. That’s only somewhat the case with Cat Jones’ four-parter The Jetty. While all four episodes are set in Lancashire, not all four episodes were also filmed there. Not entirely, anyway.

Jenna Coleman in BBC’s The Jetty. Image Credit: Firebird Pictures, Ben Blackall.

The first scenes of The Jetty show a boat which has been set alight. It’s on a rather beautiful lake. Anyone familiar with Hollingworth Lake in Littleborough might have recognised it. The reservoir, three miles northeast of Rochdale, has been a popular tourist destination for more than 150 years.

The crew scouted and selected a range of other options for external shots, many of which were in and around Manchester. Bravely, this Lancashire-set series did film a couple of scenes in Yorkshire and on the Yorkshire Moors. The West Yorkshire towns of Todmorden, Calderdale and Sowerby Bridge all feature in The Jetty, as does the village of Ripponden.

When are the episodes out?

The first episode was broadcast on Monday, 15th July. The second part came just 24 hours later. Episode three aired on Sunday, 21st July and the final episode will air on Monday 22nd July. All four parts were shown on BBC One at 9pm.

All four episodes of The Jetty are available to watch at your leisure on the BBC’s iPlayer service and have been up since Monday 15th July. With each episode lasting just shy of an hour, you could easily devour the whole series in one evening…

Overview of the episodes

Here is a brief synopsis of each of the four parts that makes up The Jetty:

Part 1
Ember Manning, a recently widowed police detective, is tasked with looking into an arson case in Lancashire and quickly learns that there could be a link to a local sexual predator who preys on underage girls. She also finds herself thinking about how old she was when she fell pregnant with her daughter and ponders the nature of her relationship with her now-dead ex-husband.

Part 2
In an attempt to figure out exactly what local true crime podcaster Riz knows about the Amy Knightly case, Ember, who is having difficulty accepting her discoveries about the past, agrees to assist Riz in her investigation.

Part 3
After dealing with the discovery of a body found in the lake, Ember struggles to accept some startling new information about her ex-husband. She soon reaches her breaking point when the fallout from those revelations begin to hit home.

Part 4
Ember becomes preoccupied with defending her daughter Hannah, all while facing up to the very real possibility that she may well have been married to a murderer. Will she be able to protect Hannah from the disturbing truth and finally discover what really happened to Amy?

Have you seen The Jetty yet? If so, what did you make of it? Let us know your thoughts on the BBC’s latest hit crime drama in the comments below…